Congratulations to Lynn Brooks of Maryland! She won a newly
released digital copy of ONE GOOD MAN in my June Book
GiveAway Contest. Like many of you, she knew that ONE GOOD
MAN was the first book I wrote for Harlequin Intrigue.

This month I’m giving away a special prize! A whole bag of
books by me and other authors. Inside this cool bag from the
Kickass Cops, Cowboys & Kisses event at the RT Convention in
Dallas are books by me and several of my friends. And yes,
there are more books inside the bag! (Because of the expense
of mailing such a large prize, entries are limited to United
States mailing addresses this month)

To enter, read the excerpt
from my July 21st release, KANSAS CITY SECRETS, the second
book in my Precinct: Cold Case miniseries. Answer the easy
question at the end. Then email me your answer, along with
your contact information. My dog, Maggie, will put her nose
to work and select a winner from amongst all the correct
entries. Deadline to enter is July 25th.

(From
Chapter Five) Max swallowed a
drink of beer that had lost its chill and set the mug down on the
rim of the pool table at the Shamrock Bar. He leaned over, blinking
his bleary eyes and lining up the shot, tuning out the drone of
conversations around the room and the jingle of the bell over the
bar’s front door. “Six in the corner pocket.” He tapped the cue
ball and grinned as the pink ball caromed off the rail and rolled
into its target. Finally. Something was going right today. He’d circled to the
end of the table to assess his best angle for dropping the seven
ball before realizing the noise level of the thinning crowd had
paused in a momentary hush. Even his opponent on the opposite side
of the pool table seemed to have frozen for a split-second in time. “She’s new.”
Hudson Kramer, a young cop with a shiny new promotion and the
subsequent pay hike burning a hole in his pocket, lay down his cue
stick and combed his fingers through his hair as glasses clinked and
conversations started up again. Was the game over? Hud’s mouth
widened with a lopsided grin as his eyes tracked movement behind
Max. “Wonder if she’s lost. Maybe she needs a friend to help her
find her way.” With a grumble of
protest at having his shot at winning back the money he’d lost
tonight interrupted, Max turned and saw the last person he’d ever
expect to see in a bar. “I’ll be damned.” Rosemary March’s
copper red hair was pulled back in a bun that wasn’t anywhere as
neat and tidy and screaming old maid as it had been this morning.
Fire and ice. The unexpected metaphor buzzed through his
head at the sight of several loose, wavy red strands bouncing
against her pale cheeks and neck as she moved. The idea of her
letting all that hair flow freely around her shoulders and tunneling
his fingers into a handful of it hit him like a sucker punch to the
gut. Max sat back on the edge of the table, propping his cue stick
against the floor to hold himself upright as she approached. He must have had
too much to drink and was conjuring up hallucinations. He closed
his eyes and muttered a curse, wondering why he wasn’t conjuring up
images of babes on swimsuit calendars instead of Miss Priss with the
sharp tongue and crazy ideas. He opened his eyes
again. Nope. She was real. And she was excusing her way past a
couple of tables and a cocktail waitress, heading straight toward
him and the pool tables. She’d exchanged the dressy sandals for a
pair of flip-flops, but she still wore that white, high-necked dress
from this morning, looking as virginal and out of place in a bar at
this hour as he’d felt at her house this morning. Didn’t mean she
didn’t look all kinds of pretty to a half-drunk, half-horny bastard
like him. “Ah, hell,” he
muttered again, wishing he’d said no to that last beer so he could
control that little rush of misplaced excitement at realizing she’d
come to see him. “Detective
Krolikowski?” She stopped a couple of feet in front of him, her
fingers tightening around the strap of the purse she hugged in front
of her. Mistaking his dumbfounded silence for a lack of
recognition, she tilted those dove gray eyes to his and introduced
herself. “Rosemary March? We met this morning? I’m not armed, I
promise.” “I know who you
are, Rosie. You here for a drink?” When the waitress slid between
the redhead and the nearest table, Max automatically reached out.
Rosie pried at his hand when he tugged on the strap of her purse to
pull her out of the other woman’s path. Her hips jostled between
the vee of his legs and his thigh muscles bunched in a helpless
response to her unintentionally intimate touch there. Max instantly
popped his grip open and let her scoot around his leg into the space
beside him. Ignoring his body’s traitorous response to a warm,
curvy woman, he held up two fingers to capture the waitress’s
attention. “Wait. You probably want something fancier than a
beer. Wine? One of those girly things with an umbrella?” “Nothing, thank
you.” Oh, he was in a bad
way today. After waving off the drink order, he turned on the edge
of the pool table and pulled a long, copper red wave away from the
dewy perspiration on Rosie’s neck. Warm from her skin, he rubbed
the silky strand between his thumb and fingers. ”So is this you
lettin’ your hair down? You go to a bar, but you don’t drink? Or
is this a temperance lecture for me? Couldn’t get enough of puttin’
me in my place this morning, eh?” “No, I... What are
you doing?” She jerked away, snatching her hair from his fingertips
and tucking it behind her ear. “This was a dumb idea.” Max pushed to his
feet and thumped the tip of his cue stick on the table in front of
her, blocking her escape. “Hold on, Rosie Posy. What are
you doing here?” Her shoulders
lifted with a deep breath and she turned, staring at the collar of
his shirt before tilting her wary eyes up to his. “You said this is
where you’d be. The Shamrock Bar. I looked up the address in the
phone book.” “Do you ever give a
straight answer to a question?” He hunched down to look her right
in the eye. “That’s how you found me. Now tell me what you want.
Let me guess, you’re a pool hustler, and you’re here to win ten
bucks off me to spite me for being such a prick this morning.” Hud Kramer walked
up behind her before the shocked O of her mouth could spit out an
answer. ”I bet she could take you, Max.” Max bristled at the
interruption. Why was that kid grinning? “Shut up.” Rosie turned to
include both men in her answer. Sort of. If looking from one chin
to the other counted. What was that woman’s aversion to making
direct eye contact? With that tart tongue of hers, he couldn’t
really call her shy. But something had to be going on to make her
subvert that red-haired temper and any other emotion she might be
feeling. “I haven’t played for a long time. I used to be pretty
decent back in college when I’d go out with friends, but, I don’t
think I’d win.” “I’d be happy to
give you a few tips, Red.” The younger cop seemed to take any
answer as encouragement to his lame flirtations. “Aren’t you going
to introduce us, Max?” But when Hud leaned
in, Rosie flinched back, maybe sidling closer to what was familiar,
if not necessarily what she considered friendly or safe. Max
shifted in an instinctively protective response and her hair tangled
with the scruff of beard on his chin, releasing her warm summer
scent. His pulse leaped and he was inhaling a deep breath before he
could stop himself. Rosie March might a baffling mix of mystery and
frustration, but she exuded a wholesome, flowery fragrance that was
far more intoxicating than the beer he’d been drinking. Max growled,
irritated by how much he noticed about this woman. And he was even
more irritated that the younger detective had noticed it, too. “Get
out of here, Kramer.” A soft nudge to the
chest with Max’s pool cue backed Hud up a step, but the young
hotshot was still smiling. Yes, the woman had rebuffed him in favor
of the older detective who needed a shave and an attitude
adjustment. But Hud wasn’t about to lose to him twice in one
night. “Our game isn’t finished, Krolikowski. I have a feeling I’m
about to make a comeback.” Groaning at the
taunt, Max set his cue stick on the table and pulled out his
wallet. He reached around Rosie to hand a ten dollar bill to the
young officer. “Here. Take it.” “You’re conceding
defeat?” “I’m conceding that
you annoy the hell out of me and I’m tired of puttin’ up with you.
Now scram.” “Yes, sir.” Kramer
took the sawbuck with a wink and a mock salute and headed straight
to a green vinyl seat in front of the polished walnut bar to order a
refill. With more room to
avoid him now, Rosie quickly stepped away and moved around the
corner of the table. “I’m sorry you lost your money. That wasn’t
my intention.” She pulled open the flap on her purse and pulled out
her wallet. “I only wanted to talk to a police officer.” Now she wanted to
answer questions? Max scanned the booths and tables around the
bar. “Take your pick. The majority of the men and women here work
in some kind of law enforcement.” “Could I talk to
you?” He looked down to
see her holding out a ten dollar bill. Muttering a curse, he pushed
the money back into her purse. At this late hour, every young stud
in the place was looking for any unattached females who might be
interested in one last drink and a chance to get lucky. They
wouldn’t know that Rosie was a person of interest in a murder
investigation. They wouldn’t care about her eccentricities or that
she could rub a man wrong in every possible way. Like Kramer, they
were noticing the outward appearance of innocence and
vulnerability. They were seeing the promise of passion in the red
flag of Rosemary March’s hair. Maybe they were picturing what it
would look like down and loose about her bare shoulders, too. Even in his hazy
brain, Max knew she didn’t belong here. “Let’s get out of
here. Robbie?” He looked to the Shamrock’s bearded owner at the
bar, and tossed some bills on the table to pay for his tab. “Come
on.” Grabbing Rosie by
the arm, he turned her toward the door. Whatever she wanted from
him, he wasn’t about to go toe to toe with some young buck who
wanted to pick her up just for the privilege of finding out.
Although she hurried her steps beside him to keep up, she tried to
shuck off his grip. But Max tightened his fingers around her
surprisingly firm upper arm muscles and didn’t let go until he’d
ushered her out the front door into the muggy haze of the hot summer
night. He took her past
the green neon sign in the front window so that curious eyes inside
wouldn’t get the idea that she might be coming back before he
released her. He plucked a fresh cigar from his shirt pocket and
leaned back against the warm bricks. “Now talk to me.” She took a couple
more steps once he released her and turned. “You smoke?” “Not exactly.” He
tore off the wrapper and stuffed the plastic into his pocket. Then
he held the stogie up to his nose, breathing in the rich tobacco
scent until he could rid the distracting memory of fresh summer
sunshine from his senses. Light from the street lamps and green
neon sign in the window reflected off the oily asphalt of the street
behind her, making her seem even more out of place in the dingy
surroundings. At least he didn’t have to deal with Kramer or
anybody else hittin’ on her out here. Max set the cigar between his
teeth and chomped down on it. “Make sense, and make it fast, okay?” He watched the
reprimand on her lips start and die. Good. He wasn’t in the mood
for one of her lectures on the evils of swearing and smoking--one of
which he hadn’t done for years. She seemed to consider his request
for brevity and nodded. “Actually, I want you to come to my house.
I had a trespasser tonight. I don’t know how long he was there
before he started vandalizing my front porch. He broke the lights
and left a message in my mail box. It’s... disturbing, to say the
least.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a folded sheet of
white paper with just her thumb and forefinger and held it out to
him. “It’s typed like the one I found on the back patio. No
signature to say who it’s from.” Straightening from
the wall, Max snatched the paper from her fingers and unfolded it.
“Somebody threaten your dogs again?” Her chin shot up
and her cheeks dotted with color. “He’s not after my dogs. He just
knows they’re a way to get to me. To scare me.” “You keep saying
he.” “Or she. I don’t
know who it was. All I saw was the shadow on my porch and the
damage after the dogs’ barking scared him away.” Max squinted the
words on the note into focus. Murdering whore. Justice will be
done. Anger surged through his veins and he swore around the
cigar. “You should have reported this ASAP to 911 instead of taking
the time to track me down.” “I don’t want to be
brushed off with another phone call, and I certainly don’t want to
be accused of making it up again.” “What makes you
think I’m gonna believe you?” Her tongue darted
out to moisten her lips, and his pulse leaped with a response that
told him he was already far too interested in this woman to remain
objective. Probably why he was such a growly butt around her. He
didn’t want to like her. It didn’t make sense to like her. And
yet, she was doing all kinds of crazy things to his brain and
libido. “To look at you,
and listen to the way you talk... You’re military, aren’t you? Or
you used to be? Not just the haircut. But, the way you stand. The
way you move. You recognized Dad’s gun as Army issue, and you
remind me of him when he was young. Except, he was shorter. More
patient. And he didn’t smoke.” Hell. Where was she going with
this? Suspicion tried to move past the fog of alcohol and put him
on alert. “Dad was in the Army. A career man who retired as a
colonel. Isn’t there some band of brothers code I can call on for
you to help me? Without treating me like a suspect in a murder
case?” Max tilted his face
to the canopy of cloudy haze reflecting the city lights overhead.
He’d spent the day mourning his fallen band of brothers, cursing his
inability to save them all--to save his best friend. He couldn’t do
this. He couldn’t call on that part of him to do his duty and fail
again. Not for this woman. Not for a comrade in arms or superior
officer he’d never even met. With a self-preserving resolve, he
lowered his gaze to hers and handed back the note. “You should have
called Trent. He’s the reasonable one.” “No one will listen
to reason.” Her hands fisted in frustration. “I need someone
who’ll help me out of blind faith in my innocence... or out of a
sense of duty. Or honor. Besides, I don’t know where your partner
is. But I remembered you said you were coming here for a drink.” “That was this
morning. What made you think I’d still be here?” A little frown
dimple appeared between her eyebrows when she wrinkled up her nose
in an unspoken apology. Oh. Her opinion of him was that low, huh?
He supposed he’d earned it. And yet she’d sought him out instead of
Trent or one of the other off duty detectives and uniforms inside
the cop bar. Maybe he shouldn’t alter her opinion of him by telling
her he’d gone back to his desk at the Precinct and put in his full
shift before grabbing a burger and heading to the Shamrock. “How
will me going to your place prove you didn’t put this note there,
too?” The soft gaze that
had held his for so long dropped to his chin. Her skin blanched to
a shade of alabaster that absorbed the harsh green color of the neon
sign. He didn’t like it that unnatural color on her. He didn’t
like feeling like a first class rat for blanking the color from her
skin. “Hey, I...” Max
pulled his cigar from his mouth with one hand and reached for a red
tendril with the other. Although she startled at his touch, she
didn’t immediately pull away this time. Instead, she watched his
hand as he sifted the silky copper through his fingers. “I’m sorry,
Rosie. I’m having a really sucky day. It’s hard to see the good in
anything or anybody tonight.” “You’re not always
like this?” He chuckled at the
doubtful face she made. “Some say I am. But on this one day every
year, I’m an extra sorry SOB.” “I wish you
wouldn’t swear like that. I get that you’re angry, already.” Oh,
he was angry, all right. At himself. At friends who died. At
failing to save them. “I get that you’re hurting. Did something
bad happen?” “Yeah. Something
very bad happened. To a friend of mine.” She’d tilted her eyes up
to his, bravely held his gaze. Maybe it was a trick of the lights
and shadows, but from this angle, standing this close, her eyes
filled with compassion, maybe even a little of that same odd
awareness he’d been feeling about her. A man could lose himself in
the deep, soft shadows of her eyes if he wasn’t careful. As
uncomfortable with her intuition about him as he was with the male
interest stirring deep inside him, he pulled his fingers from her
hair and retreated. “You said your daddy served?” She nodded,
retreating a step herself. “He flew troop transports and cargo
planes until he retired from active duty. Later, he commanded a
local unit in the National Guard.” Max thought of the
unseen pilots and navigators who’d flown him, Jimmy and the rest of
their battered squad from the Middle East into Germany. Another
transport had finally brought them and the caskets of their fallen
friends stateside. The world was a mighty small place in some
ways. “He flew soldiers home?” “Sometimes. Is
that important?” Those pretty,
intuitive eyes snuck right past his survival armor. An image of
Jimmy’s frozen dark eyes blipped through this thoughts. Never
leave a man behind. He crushed the memory that left him reeling
and grabbed her arm, pulling her into step beside him and striding
down the sidewalk. “Where’s your car? I’ll walk you to it and then
follow you back to your house.” But when he stepped
off the curb he stumbled. His momentum pulled her against his chest
for a split-second, imprinting his body from neck to thigh with her
warm curves, filling his head with that damnable clean scent he
wanted to bury himself in. “On second thought,
maybe you’d better drive.” She was the one who
grabbed a fistful of shirt and his shoulder to steady him and guide
him back to the sidewalk. “You’re drunk, aren’t you.” There was that
snappy, righteous tone again. Her eyes had gone cold. “That was my
goal, honey. It helps me forget.” Rosie didn’t waste
any time pushing away. “This was a mistake. I thought you were
different.” “You are the most
confounding woman...” With his emotions off the chart, his hormones
twisted up in a mix of lustful curiosity and a craving for the
peaceful solace he’d read in her eyes--not to mention the four beers
he’d drunk since dinner--Max tossed his unlit cigar into the gutter
and stopped her from walking away. “Did something scare you tonight
or not?” He spun her around
and pulled her up onto her toes, bringing her lips close enough to
steal a kiss if he wanted to. And, by hell, he wanted to. Shifting his hands
to the copper bounty of her hair, Max tunneled his fingers into the
silky waves and pulled her mouth to his. With a gasp of surprise,
her lips parted and Max took advantage of the sudden softening of
that preachy mouth by capturing her lower lip between his. He drew
his tongue along the supple curve, tasting something tart and lemony
there. Her lip trembled at his hungry exploration. He felt the
tiny tremor like a timid caress and throttled back on his blind
need. Another breath whispered across his cheek, and he waited for
the shove against his chest. But her fingers tightened in the front
of his shirt, instead, pressing little fingerprints into the muscles
of his chest, and she pushed her lips softly against his mouth,
returning the kiss. Something twisted
and hard, full of rage and regret, unknotted inside him at her
unexpected acceptance of his desire. Frustration faded. Anger
disappeared. The wounds of guilt and grief that had been festering
inside him all day calmed beneath her tender response. He threaded
his fingers into the loose twist of her bun, pushing aside pins and
easing the taut style until her hair was sifting between his fingers
and his palms were cupping the gentle curve of her head. “Your
hair’s too pretty to keep it tied up the way you do, Rosie. Too
sexy.” “Detective Krol--”
He kissed her temple, her forehead, reclaimed her lips once more.
He’d reached for her in a haze of frustration and desire, but she
was holding on with a gentle grasp and angling her mouth beneath
his. It wasn’t a passionate kiss. It wasn’t seductive or
stylized. It was an honest kiss. It was the kind of kiss a man was
lucky to get once or twice in his life. It was a perfect kiss.
Beauty was taming the Beast. Or merely
distracting him?Detective? Ah, hell. He
quickly released her and backed away, his hands raised in apology.
“Did something scare you tonight... besides me?” “You didn’t scare
me,” she lied. Her fingers hovered in the area for a few seconds
before she clasped them around the strap of her purse. Max scraped his
palm over the over the top of his head, willing his thoughts to
clear. “Just answer the damn question.” She nodded. She wasn’t here for
the man. She was here for the cop. He’d like to blame the booze
that had lowered his inhibitions and done away with his common
sense, but fuzzy headed or sober, he knew he’d crossed too many
lines with Rosie March today. “I think this is where you slap my
face and call me some rotten name.” Her eyes opened
wide. “I wouldn’t do that.” “No, I don’t
suppose a lady like you would.” Her lips were pink
and slightly swollen from his beard stubble. Her hair was a sexy
muss, and part of him wanted nothing more than to kiss her again, to
bury his nose in her scent and see if she would wind her arms around
his neck and align her body to his as neatly as their mouths had fit
together. But she was hugging her arms around her waist instead of
him, pressing that pretty mouth back into its tightly controlled
line. When had he ever hauled off and kissed a woman like that?
With her history, she’d probably been frightened by his behavior,
and had given him what she thought he wanted in hopes of appeasing
him, counting the seconds until he let her slip away. She had to be
terrified, desperate, to come to him after this morning’s
encounter. The fact that she wasn’t running away from him right now
had to be a testament to her strength--or just how desperate she was
to have someone from KCPD believe in her. And for some reason she’d
chosen him to be her hero. Max scrubbed his
palm over his jaw. He hadn’t played hero for anybody in a long
time. He hadn’t been any good at it since Jimmy’s suicide. He did
his job, period. He didn’t care. He didn’t get involved. This
woman was waking impulses in him that were so rusty from lack of use
that it caused him pain to feel himself wanting to respond to her
request. “What do you need from me?” She tucked that
glorious fall of hair behind her ears and tried to smooth it back
into submission. “I think I’m in real trouble. And I don’t know
what to do. KCPD thinks I might be a killer, so they’re not taking
me seriously and won’t look into these threats. But I thought that
you... maybe you’d set aside your suspicions and do it for my dad.
I know it’s an imposition, and I know you’d rather be investigating
me for murder than deal with some unknown stalker you think I made
up, but--” “You’re right,
Rosie. I was a soldier. Sergeant First Class, U.S. Army. A man
like your dad brought me and my buddies home from a hell of a fight
where we lost too many good men.” For the first time in a lot of
months, on that flight across the Atlantic, he’d been able to close
his eyes and sleep eight hours straight, knowing he and his men were
safe from the enemy as long as they were on that plane. “What was
your daddy’s name?” “Colonel Stephen
March.” “Maybe I don’t owe
the colonel personally. But I owe.” She’d appealed to the soldier
in him, tapped into that sense of duty he’d once answered without
hesitation. She had him pegged a lot sooner than he was figuring
her out. “And, I owe you for putting up with me on my worst day.” “Is there something
I can do to help? Besides...” She ran her tongue around her lips,
maybe still tasting some of the need he’d stamped there. “I’m a
very good listener.” He grumbled a wry
laugh. So no offer to repeat that kiss, eh? “Just give me a chance
to be a better man than the one you met today.” “So you’ll come
look? You’ll help me?” Either he was the
world’s biggest sucker, or Rosie March was in real danger and she
believed he was her best chance at staying safe. Whether he was
doing this for her or her dad or to atone for all the mistakes he’d
made today--all the mistakes he’d made in the past eight years--he
was doing it. “Yes, ma’am.” Wisely keeping his hands to himself
this time, he gestured for her to lead the way to her car. “Let’s
go find this low-life.”